About eighty-four leagues up the river they came to an island inhabited
by the Timbues, who received them well. Mendoza presented their chief,
Zchera Wasu, with a shirt, a red cap, an axe, and a few other trifles,
in return for which he received fish and game enough to save the lives
of his people. This tribe trusted wholly to fishing and to the chase for
food. They used long canoes. The men were naked, and ornamented both
nostrils with stones. The women wore a cotton cloth from the waist to
the knee, and cut beauty-slashes in their faces. Here the Spaniards took
up their abode, and named the place "Buena Esperanza," signifying "Good
Hope." One Gonzalo Romero, who had been one of Cabot's people and had
been living among the savages, joined them here. He told them there were
large and rich settlements up the country, and it was thought advisable
that Ayolas should proceed with the brigantines in search of them.
Meantime Mendoza, who was now become completely crippled, returned to
Buenos Aires, where he found a great part of his people dead, and the
survivors struggling with famine and every species of wretchedness. They
were relieved by the arrival of Gonzalo Mendoza, who, at the beginning
of their distresses, had been despatched to the coast of Brazil in quest
of supplies. Part of Cabot's people, after the destruction of his
settlement, had sailed for Brazil and established themselves in a bay
called Ygua, four-and-twenty leagues from St. Vicente. There they began
to form plantations, and continued two years on friendly terms with the
adjoining natives and with the Portuguese. Disputes then arose, and,
according to the Castilian account (for no other remains), the
Portuguese resolved to fall upon them and drive them out of the country;
of this they obtained intelligence, surprised the intended invaders,
plundered the town of St. Vicente, and, being joined by some
discontented Portuguese from that infant colony, sailed in two ships for
the island of St. Catalina. There these adventurers began a new
settlement, but such was their restless spirit that, when Gonzalo
Mendoza arrived there, they were easily persuaded to abandon the houses
which they had just constructed, and the fields which were now beginning
to afford them comfortable subsistence; and the whole colony, with their
two ships, joined him and made for the Plata, to partake in the conquest
and spoils of the Silver River.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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